


Think But This (and all is mended)

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2017 [14]
Category: Political Animals
Genre: Past Drug Addiction, Past Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 09:51:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9485870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Political Animals, TJ Hammond, making amends."TJ is working in recovery working on his steps and runs into someone he never thought to make amends to but who deserves amends.





	

TJ stepped out of the little community center and into the sunlight, slipped on his sunglasses to avoid the glare. He tucked a folded piece of paper into his pocket - a list of people he was making amends to for Step Eight - and contemplated. It wasn't physically possible for him to personally make amends to all the people he'd hurt while in the throes of his addiction, like the one-night stands and flings and random people he was just rude to. But he could make amends in another way, by going out of his way to be decent.  
  
As for people he could personally make amends to, Anne looked like she was going to be the most difficult to make amends to, because TJ didn't know her nearly as well as he ought.  
  
Maybe that was where he should start. Get to know Ann.  
  
TJ jammed his hands into his pockets, ducked his chin into his collar to stave off the worst of the early spring chill.  
  
He rounded the corner and almost ran into a woman.  
  
"Sorry," he said, pulling up short.  
  
She was slender, blonde, wearing a fashionable brocade jacket and a conservative pencil skirt. "TJ Hammond?"  
  
Immediately he pasted on his polite, distant smile. She was dressed professionally. A reporter? "Who's asking?"  
  
"Are you TJ Hammond?" There was a quaver in her voice that sounded less than professional, but reporters had proved they weren't above using petty tricks to worm their way into his personal life, so he remained unmoved.  
  
"I am."  
  
The slap caught him off guard. Not an open-handed dramatic hissy fit, but a solid back-hand that made his head reel and made him see stars.   
  
TJ staggered, regained his balance. Worked his jaw and eyed her. "Do I know you?"  
  
"You know my husband, Sean Reeves."  
  
Even now, six months after the club opening, six months since TJ had seen Sean, the name hollowed out a place behind his ribs. He forced himself to take several deep breaths. He'd never really processed Sean. Talked in oblique terms to his therapist about the man he'd loved, who'd broken his heart, who'd sent him reeling, who sent him running for something to numb the raw agony.  
  
"Not anymore," TJ said.  
  
The woman - Mrs. Reeves? TJ had never even learned her first name - looked young. Pale. Afraid. And hurt. TJ knew the hurt in her eyes all too well. But she curled her hands into fists and drew herself up to her full height and met his gaze as best as she could, what with him wearing shades.  
  
TJ felt guilt wash over him. He'd never thought of her or her children, not really. Just about Sean, and how he made TJ feel, and the things he'd said, and the jagged edges of his broken heart in his chest -  
  
He tugged off his sunglasses and pocketed them so he could look at her, so she could look at him.  
  
He'd never ever thought of her. But here she was. She was someone he'd hurt. This was his chance to make amends. But how?  
  
"That you knew him at all ruined my life," the woman said, voice low and trembling not with fear but fury.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"I don't know if people like you know how to be sorry."   
  
TJ bit back a sound that might have been a laugh but was probably a sob. "All we know how to do is be sorry. What we rarely figure out is how to make amends."  
  
"You ruined my life, and you can never make amends for that."  
  
"Will you at least let me try?" TJ asked.  
  
The woman snorted in derision. "Why should I even let you try? And what could you possibly have that I'd want?"  
  
"I don't know," TJ said. "I don't know _you._ "  
  
"Damn right you don't. You probably never even thought of me."  
  
"Not till now," TJ admitted softly.

The woman curled her hands into fists, and TJ braced himself for another slap. But then her hands relaxed, and she peered at him.  
  
"Why? Why Sean? Why my husband?"  
  
TJ shrugged helplessly. "I was in love with him."  
  
She laughed, and it definitely sounded like a sob. "So was I. But he was _my husband_."  
  
"I just - we were at a party, and he smiled at me, and he was nice to me, and he wasn't like those other Washington politicos who had an angle, wanted an in with my mother or brother or father."  
  
"He smiled at you." The woman's gaze went distant for a moment. "That one smile, the small, secretive one, when he gets that light in his eyes? Where he's amused and the only other person in on the joke is you?"  
  
TJ's throat closed. He nodded. That was exactly the smile.  
  
"That was how he got me, too. With that smile." The woman eyed him. "I want to claw your eyes out, because that smile was supposed to be only for me. But I know how that smile works, how it hooks you behind your sternum and pops your ribcage open and rips out your heart. And you can never get your heart back. Did you get your heart back?"  
  
"Maybe. Not sure I've found all the pieces."  
  
"You shouldn't have, though. Not with a married man."  
  
"I've never been good at resisting temptation," TJ said. "But I'm working on it."  
  
The woman studied him for a long time. "Keep working, TJ Hammond. Call this part of your amends to me and my children." She turned and started to walk away.  
  
"And the other part?"  
  
"Stay the hell away from my husband."  
  
That night, TJ went home and stared at a tumbler of Nana's best whiskey for a long, long time before he poured the amber liquid back into the bottle, set it aside, sat down at the piano, and cried.  
  
Then he called Anne and arranged a time to hang out, go clothes shopping together, and get to know her better.


End file.
